Vaughn’s First Blog Post: Indigenous Fútbal

After a busy weekend, neither of us felt like going anywhere. However, I knew that if I didn’t take this chance to see the championship game among the Otavaleños in a remote village, we’d regret it. Vaughn (age 6), not being familiar with the concept of regret for cultural experiences forgone, started to dig his heels in after the third time I asked him to come with me. Thankfully Jamie, in a moment of inspired-mom-creativity, whispered to Vaughn that if he’d go with me, he could take the pictures and tell a story to go on the internet.

So here we are! Below are the pictures, taken by him (except when he’s in them) and his words explaining them.

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Indigenous Fútbal is what this story is called because they won’t know what we’re talking about when we say fútbal.

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No, I didn’t want to go to soccer because it bored and annoyed me. Then, mommy said I could hold it [the camera] and so I felt good.

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This is my mommy giving it to me.

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Dad, you know who that is! It’s you getting the backpack ready.

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That’s the fake corn in the stairs. [It is fake] Because mom said.

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Here’s my shoe.

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Okay, that’s a pig face. I see a lot of these around.

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When we got to the field we saw trophies and people.

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Then people playing soccer. They call it fútbol.

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At the field a guy was holding a big stick with lots of cotton candy. We took little bites of the cotton candy. Well there was one big stick, but I didn’t get the big one; just a small one.

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I was happy kinda.

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We walked with lots of people. The men with long hair were drinking beer. They kept asking daddy if he wanted more beer. He sometimes said, “Si”.

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They were putting music on.

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Yea and the lady was putting ribbons on people.

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I was drinking water because I was thirsty from eating empanadas.

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I took a picture of this dog. It makes me think of Lucy, my dog.

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Because other kids were tumbling in the field, I did too.

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The sun was sunsetting.

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I was trying to get a picture of the ball flying so high.

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We started to leave to find a taxi or a truck.

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But then we saw some niños playing fútbol.

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I went and said, ¿Puedo jugar con tigo?

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They said sí!

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We started playing and wining by kicking to the goal. They say “gooll”.

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We found a truck actually and I was trying to take a picture of that house, but there was steam [dust] in the picture.

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The truck was so fast. I was holding onto a pole so tight.

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Cows and police were in the way. They kept walking and then the truck stopped.